Lesson 2 - Fermentation Principles
Fermentation is critical to the whole brewing process. Achieving success at the fermentation stage involves many factors. In this lesson we look at what these fundamental factors are and the effect they have.
Preface
All stages of the brewing process are important but none more so than fermentation; it is vital that we understand the process so that we can get it right. In this lesson we explore what happens at each stage of fermentation and how to monitor and assess the process. We then look at the key variables and what effects they have.
At a basic level we can describe brewery fermentation as what happens when yeast grows on wort, and beer as what remains when the yeast has stopped growing. This possibly explains the way humans discovered alcohol many thousands of years ago. In other words, fermentation is something that happens naturally without any help from us; our ancestors just discovered it by accident and liked the results.
We have now transformed this chance discovery into an industrial process and we can describe it as the controlled conversion of wort into beer, catalysed by yeast and maybe other microorganisms.
In theory then, the brewer is now in control instead of the yeast. As such, we need to know what the important levers are and what happens when they are pulled. This lesson details what happens in fermentation, outlines the important factors that influence performance, and explains how we control these factors and what happens when they are varied.